Obama committees in black, red

Two committees backing President Barack Obama’s presidential campaign respectively closed the 2012 election $4.6 million in the black and $6.2 million in the hole, according to new campaign finance reports filed Thursday.

It’s not unusual for even well-run presidential campaigns to show debt months after an election, as they continue spending right up through election day, with bills for late expenses arriving weeks and sometimes months later.

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Obama for America brought in the bulk of its December haul from a $5.3 million transfer from Obama Victory Fund, its joint fundraising committee with the Democratic National Committee. An additional $432,000 came from individual contributions.

Obama’s main campaign committee spent nearly $8 million during the same period on expenses like payroll ($1.2 million), travel ($3.1 million), staging, sound and lighting ($3.7 million) and printing ($940,285). It owes an additional $6 million to vendors including $450,000 to AKPD Message and Media and Axelrod Strategies — firms affiliated with Obama’s top strategist, David Axelrod.

Obama Victory Fund brought in nearly $2 million in December and spent more than $9 million – of which $5.7 million went to transfers. The committee divvied up $200,000 between state Democratic parties of Virginia, Colorado, Florida and Wisconsin. It also transferred $225,000 to the Democratic National Committee.

Both committees’ end-of-the-year reports show that Obama supporters continued to back the president even after the election. Obama’s campaign recently announced it would be converting the campaign’s apparatus into a tax-exempt nonprofit, Organizing for Action. The new group will use the already established network of Obama donors and volunteers to further president’s agenda for the second term.